Lammy was born on 19 July 1972 in Whittington Hospital, on Highgate Hill, Upper Holloway, North London, to Guyanese parents David and Rosalind Lammy.[2][3][4] He and his four siblings were raised solely by his mother, after his father left the family when Lammy was 12 years old. Lammy speaks publicly about the importance of fathers and the need to support them in seeking to be active in the lives of their children. He chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Fatherhood and has written on the issue.[5][6][7]

In 2000 he was elected for Labour on the London-wide list to the London Assembly. During the London election campaign Lammy was selected as the Labour candidate for Tottenham when Bernie Grant died. He was elected to the seat in a by-election held on 22 June 2000.

In 2010 there were suggestions that Lammy might stand for election as Mayor of London in 2012. Lammy pledged his support to Ken Livingstone's bid to become the Labour London mayoral candidate, declaring him "London's Mayor in waiting".[12] Lammy became Livingstone's selection campaign chair. In 2014, Lammy announced that he was considering entering the race to become Mayor of London in the 2016 election.[13]

In March 2016, he was fined £5,000 for instigating 35,629 automatic phone calls urging people to back his mayoral campaign without gaining permission to contact the party members concerned. Lammy apologised "unreservedly" for breach of the Privacy and Electronic Communication Regulations.[16] It was the first time a politician had been fined for authorising nuisance calls.[17]

Lammy has over the years publicly attributed blame for certain crimes to various specific causes and persons. He has also talked about black and ethnic minority peoples, especially younger peoples, relation with crime and how they are treated by the criminal justice system.

Lammy in 2015

On 11 August 2011, in an address to Parliament, Lammy attributed part of the cause for England's riots of a few days earlier to destructive 'cultures' that had emerged under the prevailing policies."[21] He also stated that a ban on smacking children was partly to blame for current youth culture, that had attributed to the riots.[22]

Lammy has blamed the Prime Minister and Home Secretary for failing to take responsibility over fatal stabbings in London.[23] Lammy also blames inequality, high youth unemployment among black males, also local authorities cutting youth services and outreach programmes.[24]

Lammy has stated that the criminal justice system deals with "disproportionate numbers" of young people from black and ethnic minority communities, despite saying that although decisions to charge were "broadly proportionate", he has said that black and ethnic minority people still face and perceive bias.[25] Lammy said that young black people are nine times more likely to be incarcerated than "comparable" white people, and proposed a number of measures including system of "deferred prosecution" for young first time offenders to reduce incarcerations.[26] Lammy has asserted that black and ethnic minority people offend "at the same rates" as comparable white people "when taking age and socioeconomic status into account". They were more likely to be stopped and searched, if charged more likely to be convicted, more likely to be sent to prison and less likely to get support in prison.[27]

Lammy has prompted controversy and rebuttals for comments he has expressed regarding race, the factual accuracy of some his statements and views he has posted on the social media platform Twitter.

While tweeting from the Commons chamber in 2013, Lammy accused the BBC of making a "silly innuendo about the race" during the announcement of the next Pontiff after the BBC tweeted will smoke be black or white? in reference to smoke above the Sistine Chapel. Lammy criticised the BBC's tweet as "crass and unnecessary.” He subsequently apologised after other twitter users pointed out the role played by black and white smoke in announcing the election of a new Pope.[38][39]

Writing in an article for The Spectator journalist Rod Liddle disputed Lammy's claim that he was raised in a family reliant on tax credits that were introduced to the United Kingdom when Lammy was at the age of 31.[41]

In January 2019, Lammy attracted controversy on twitter for describing Rod Liddle having a column in a weekly newspaper as a "national disgrace" and accused Liddle of having “white middle class privilege” for expressing the view that absent fathers played a role in violent crime involving black youths. A number of twitter users responded by accusing Lammy of hypocrisy given that the MP had previously expressed similar opinions in 2012.[42]

In February 2019, Lammy criticised Stacey Dooley for photographs she posted on social media of her trip to Uganda for Comic Relief, and said that "the world does not need any more white saviours", and that she was "perpetuating 'tired and unhelpful stereotypes' about Africa".[43][44] The donations received for the Red Nose Day broadcast in March 2019 fell by £8 million and the money raised that year was the lowest since 2007, which some have blamed on Lammy's remarks. Critics of his view included Jimmy Wales[45] and Conservative Party MP Chris Philp.[46]

^Cruddas, Jon; Rutherford Jonathan (10 December 2011). "David Lammy's lesson". New Statesman. Retrieved 16 December 2011. David Lammy's book Out of the Ashes: Britain After the Riots [...] is about more than the English riots, it's about the future of Labour in the country.